June 02, 2004

Madonna Gets Religion

Madonna gets religion, well actually she's had it for a long time, but the goodfellas at Get Religion have an interesting write up on her new tour in this post. Her new show is chock full of religion, not of the Christian kind of course, but religion nonetheless. Here's Get Religion quoting the New York Times:

The night began with an ominous recitation from the Book of Revelation, and then Madonna emerged in a sparkly bustier for "Vogue," a tribute to New York night life that now sounds more like the soundtrack to an instructional Pilates video. "Strike a pose," Madonna sang, and then she did, supporting herself on her forearms while her booted and stockinged feet kicked the sky.
Madonna's old infatuation with decadence has largely given way to an obsession with physical and mental health: her Web site, Madonna.com, reports that she requires "25 cases of kabbalah water provided backstage nightly," and she paid cheerful but earnest tribute to her new favorite spiritual beliefs throughout the show: near the end she sang "Papa Don't Preach" while wearing a T-shirt that read "Kabbalists Do It Better."

One of the things Terry Mattingly points out is that things wouldn't go over so well if this was Christians blatantly displaying their faith:

I realize that Madonna is a major artist, so to speak. But can anyone imagine anyone else getting away with this kind of religious content in a show without being attacked for it? Imagine if POD went this far with Christian content.

True, true. Madonna's religion is so well accepted because it plays to two of the most fundamental impulses in human beings - the religious and the sexual (one TV personality said this show has plenty of "lesbian love"). This sounds alot like the worship that was found amongst the Babylonians and the Greeks of Biblical times. This has always been a very popular form of worship.

As to Terry's question about what would happen if a Christian artist were to put the same amount of specifically Christian content into their show, the answer is obvious, and I know Terry meant it as a rhetorical question. On the other hand, we shouldn't expect anything different: John 15:18-19 says:

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

We Christians have gotten very "up in arms" in the last few decades about our nation's disrespect of Christians, but Christ promised this to all who would follow Him. It's the nature of the beast of being a Christ-follower, and we should not be alarmed, but go on loving, serving and witnessing, and entrusting ourselves to the keeper of our souls.